Announcements
- Nickelodeon Animation Festival Voting!
(Vote Here!) Jason Merrin, a freshman in the Digital Media Design program, has been chosen as a finalist in the 2009 Nickelodeon Animation Festival. His experimental film, “The History of an Animation” takes the audience through the process of how an animator learns to animate, from doodles all the way through computer animation. . - Jon Shih from DreamWorks Animation : DreamWorks Animation Pipeline / Department Technical Director Workshop
(Wednesday, November 18, 2009, Levine 207 3:30pm-5:00pm) This presentation will give an overview of how we use technology at DreamWorks Animation (DWA) to facilitate the computer animation production process and detail the role of the Department Technical Director at DWA. We will look at some of the departments involved in production, their technical needs, and how they work together to assemble the movie. We will also focus on the specific role of the Department Technical Director in our pipeline and how this department ties all of our production departments together.. - Marilyn Friedman from DreamWorks Animation : DreamWorks Animation Company Overview
(Wednesday, November 18, 2009, Wu and Chen Auditorium 6pm-8pm) This presentation will give an overview of how we make our movies at DreamWorks Animation and the skills and experiences necessary to work as an artist in CG Animation today. Marilyn will show clips from some of our upcoming films, explain the DreamWorks Animation production workflow and talk about how to present yourself in your resumes and demo reels to grab the attention of employers. She will also be showing examples of successful demo reels so you can see what will land you a job in the CG Animation, Visual Effects and Gaming industry.. - Congratulations - "Best Poster Award"
(Mark Henderson, Joseph T. Kider Jr., Maxim Likhachev, Alla Safonova).
GPU Technology Conference, 2009 - Congratulations - "Best Paper Award"
(Joseph T. Kider Jr., Rebecca L. Fletcher, Nancy Yu, Renata Holod, Alan Chalmers, and Norman I. Badler) . Website.
10th VAST International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, 2009 - Congratulations - "Best Paper Award"
(Liming Zhao + Alla Safonova). Website
ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation, 2008 - Penn Provost’s Interdisciplinary Seminar Fund (PISF) Award Norman Badler and Renata Holod are pleased to announce that they have received one of the awards from the Penn Provost’s Interdisciplinary Seminar Fund (PISF). This award supports the continuation of successful collaborations between Art History (ARTH) and Computer and Information Science (CIS) under the interdisciplinary seminar title "Virtual Heritage". This seminar exemplifies the interaction and collaboration between those who study, document, reconstruct and preserve the past, and those who bring technological expertise and skills to modeling, simulating and animating structures, artifacts and people.
- CG@Penn Townhall
(Friday, September 11, 2009, Berger 3pm) Our kickoff event for a great year ahead! Slides - New book available!
Virtual Crowds: Methods, Simulation, and Control is now available from Morgan & Claypool Publishers. If your institution subscribes to their synthesis lectures, then you can download it for free!
Dawn and Welton Becket DMD Achievement Award (2009): Ariela Nurko
If you would like to receive email announcements of events related to CG@Penn, you can join our CG mailing list.
In May 2008, Norm Badler lectured at DGPis40: Scientific Workshop & 40th Anniversary Reunion, at the University of Toronto. Click here for the video.
Click here for a listing of past events.
Goals of HMS
The Center for Human Modeling and Simulation exists to investigate computer graphics modeling and animation techniques for embodied agents, virtual humans, and their applications. Major foci involve developing behavior-based animation of human movement especially for gesture, gait, and facial expression, constructing a parameterized action representation for real-time simulation and animation, and understanding the relationship between human movement, natural language, and communication.
Origins
In January 1994, the former Computer Graphics Research Laboratory of the Computer and Information Science Department became the Center for Human Modeling and Simulation (HMS). Research on human body modeling and simulation had been underway in the laboratory since 1975. The lab achieved international recognition for its research, specifically for the Jack software.
The Center provides a collegial and open atmosphere in which faculty, staff, and students cooperate and coordinate project work. Nearly a dozen Ph.D. students engage in collaborative research efforts with Masters and Undergraduate students.
Education Links to HMS
Part of Computer Graphics at the University of Pennsylvania, the HMS Center has an affiliated Master of Science in Engineering in Computer Graphics and Game Technology program and an affiliated undergraduate degree program, called Digital Media Design. The relationship between HMS and DMD provides exceptional opportunities for undergraduate research.
HMS also runs a summer program for high school students. Students create their own 3-D character from scratch and work on an animation-short involving their character. CG@Penn also works with the Microsoft School of the Future through a one-credit course. Penn students learn multimedia tools and technology by creating tutorials and then teach them at the high school.
